Lithium start-up finds backers for Cornish project

Claims that Cornwall is sitting on a multibillion-pound lithium bonanza are due to be tested after a start-up ­project that plans to drill for the metal raised £1m from a trio of experienced mining investors.

Cornish Lithium aims to extract the resource, which is in increasing ­demand for batteries, from hot underground salt water. Its new investors include Norwegian financier Peter Smedvig, founder of Smedvig Capital, whose net worth has been estimated at more than £900m.

Rdruth, Cornwall

The others are Chris von Christierson, an ex-director of Goldfields, and Keith Liddell, a metallurgist and former CEO of Aquarius Platinum.

They have put up cash to explore a 15-mile stretch of land where Cornish Lithium secured extraction rights ­earlier this year.

Jeremy Wrathall, chief executive, said the firm would also tap the expertise of its new investors. “We assessed a number of offers but the most important thing was the experience of the people and their ability to follow their money,” Mr Wrathall said. Cornish Lithium will use the funding to collate historic data on hot brines in Cornwall and confirm its targets for drilling. It will then look to raise around £4m to fund its drilling programme in about a year’s time, possibly through a listing on London’s junior Aim market.

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Mr Wrathall hopes a boom in electric cars will drive demand for lithium. He said the project was “potentially very strategic for the UK”, adding that recent news around electric cars – such as the Government’s pledge to end sales of petrol vehicles by 2040 – had provoked a surge of interest from ­investors.

“This project will have a low environmental impact and will ­produce a metal which is highly beneficial to the economy as we go toward a zero-emission future,” he said.

Providing it secures permits, Cornish Lithium will drill to a depth of between 500m and 1,000m to tap the brine, before pumping the water out and extracting the lithium in a processing plant.

Mr Liddell said Cornish Lithium had the potential to be a “very significant player in the lithium industry in the UK and Europe”.